But Angelica was not to be disposed of so simply. She made up her mind that he would have to speak, he would have to tell her outright that he didn’t love her.
"He won’t find it hard to get rid of me!" she thought, bitterly. "But he’s got to say. I want to understand. What does he write me a letter like that for, and then be this way?"
She had a feeble little hope that perhaps it was only his feeling of duty that kept him from her, that he loved her and didn’t dare to see her. She felt that if he would just say that he loved her, but that they must give up all thought of each other, she would be satisfied. She could go on living, if she had that knowledge. Something, however, he must say.
On the third evening she lay in wait for him. Polly and Mrs. Russell had gone to bed, and he hadn’t returned yet from a lecture he was giving in the village; so she turned out the light in her room and sat in the dark, with the door open, waiting.
It was a melancholy October night. The leaves from the linden rustled against her window as they were blown from the branches, and a constant, monotonous, low wind blew, with a sound like rain. She sat as still as a spider in a web, grim, unhappy, filled with apprehension.
In the course of time he came in. She saw him hurry down the hall in his wet ulster and cap, and go into his own room. She was after him before he had time to close the door.
"I want to speak to you!" she said. "Why didn’t you let me? Don’t you want to see me?"
"No," he said. "No, Angelica, I don’t." He hadn’t even removed his cap. He put his hand on the knob of the door. "You shouldn’t have come here," he said. "Some one might see you."
"I don’t care! I want to know. What’s the matter? What’s happened?"
"I hoped," he said quietly, "that you’d let it drop without an explanation which is bound to be painful for both of us."